We have complied what we believe is the most comprehensive review of all major brands of compact routers currently on the market. In the course of developing our Universal Router Adapter for our AR-15 and AR-308 Router Jigs we bought and tested every compact router that was readily available online or at local home improvement stores.

If you're a TL;DR type of guy: The Dewalt DWP611 and Porter Cable PCE6435 are the winners. What we found is variable speed is a must have option for optimal finish quality, but actually all of the routers we tested produced awesome results.